TL;DR for Path of Fury Episode 1: Tetsuo’s Tower
(played on a Meta Quest 3 128 GB model)
| Pros | Cons |
| + Exceptional combat | – Combo-breaking hitbox issues |
| + Strong aesthetic direction | – Potentially nauseating death animation |
| + No fluff | |
| + Buttery-smooth performance |
INTRODUCTION & STORY
Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower is easily the most fun I’ve had in VR since Maestro dropped back in October of last year.
If VR gaming is fundamentally about hitting flow states within an immersive fantasy, then Path of Fury is a top-tier title. No question.
The conceit of the game is straightforward:
You’re a high-octane kung-fu badass seeking revenge.
Revenge for what?
Doesn’t matter.
It’s about the vibes. This puppy’s all vibes.
It’s a neon sign beside a grungy nightclub brawl that flickers in the rain “VIBES SOLD HERE”.
You get little insights into your motivation through subtitled dialogue, but there’s no expository lore dumps droning the ins and outs of why all of these criminals (and cops, and office workers, and waiters, and other man-shaped obstacles) need to be punched into a writhing mess on the floor.
You get enough out of your enemies to know they’re your enemies.
You get enough out of the flashbacks of the woman in that polaroid you carry around to know that she’s your motivation.
And you get enough out of your death screens—through pithy, dramatic sayings dealing with honour and destiny and the like—to know what it is to be a one-man dojo in the nineties.
At least I reckon the game takes place in the nineties, if the occasional low-tech background set pieces are to be trusted anyway.
The game’s form reflects its period through smart stylistic choices, like its character models and textures that look like they were ripped straight from a PS1 title.
The ugly character models in the trailer threw me off initially.
But growing up on Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, and Jet Li movies I thought I’d still try to rock with it; just to see.
And boy, am I glad I did.
GAMEPLAY & PRESENTATION
A wise man once said that the difference between a fashion faux-pas and a bold style choice is intention; it’s about leaning into your decision with supportive visual elements and confidence.
Sure, the models in Path of Fury are hella low-poly, but that’s an intentional homage to the era, and an intelligent way to boost the game’s performance on the limited standalone hardware of the Quest 3.
And sure, the textures are pixelated, but they’re not muddy.
I know what I’m looking at and it supports the ever-important vibe.
These antiquated visual elements are offset through intentionality, cohesion, and strong, moody lighting.
Aesthetics here are supported and amplified in every vector, with great attention to detail.
And pulling that off in a unique way is something that I will always praise in any game, regardless of what that aesthetic direction might be.
The sound, music, visuals, and gameplay all work together to shoot you headlong into the heart of a haunted martial arts hero.
“Kung-Fu movie sound design, haptic feedback, and significant character reactions all contribute to unmatched simulated martial arts combat.”
Even sitting here to write this article like some sort of words-guy when I know now in my bones that I am a deadly kung-fu vengeance monger feels like a betrayal of my newfound righteous quest for blood.
Path of Fury plays like this:
Strike villainous goons’ weak points as they appear, with enough speed and at the right angle.
Fail to do so—or simply face an opponent whose health-bar is big enough to eat a full combo—and they’ll counter-attack.
Counter their counter-attacks by attacking their attacks.
Do this with precision and good timing or die.
Alright, so I’ve been playing Thrill of the Fight 2 lately.
If you don’t know it, it’s a VR gymnasium where you and a stranger make crude gestures at each other with a PVP boxing game pinned to the back of it.
But that PVP boxing game is blighted by the very fact of its PVP-ness!
Ha.
Thing is, I’ve had some reservations about Thrill of the Fight 2 that I haven’t quite been able to pin down.
That is, until I played Path of Fury.
Now since you don’t feel pain in VR (mostly), and since your body doesn’t recoil from the strikes you take—nor your opponent’s body from the strikes you deal—Thrill of the Fight 2 often becomes flaily and pillow-fisted, like an anxiety dream.
In Path of Fury, however, strikes feel strong.
Kung-Fu movie sound design, haptic feedback, and significant character reactions all contribute to unmatched simulated martial arts combat.
If you’ve ever done a striking-based martial art, you know how good that particular flow state feels; whether you’re working a speed bag, a heavy bag, or a foam shield—improvising combos with backhands, chops, double-jabs, hammer-fists—whatever!
By constraining you to work against enemies’ distinct attack patterns—constraining you to certain angles and timings—the game becomes a dance partner in the fluid invention of on-the-fly combos and makeshift katas.
And if that’s not cutting edge emergent gameplay then I don’t know what is.
“… this game is a simple-to-pick-up-yet-hard-to-master power fantasy that immerses you in its coherent and bold aesthetic identity.”
The game’s not all ad-libbed, chi-raising punch dances though.
It gets challenging.
Luckily your apartment/overworld menu has a wooden training dummy upon which you can practice against the specific attack pattern of whatever enemy is giving you trouble.
If you have excellent reflexes—and maybe a martial arts background—you could potentially brawl through the campaign in under two hours.
But each level also has a scoring system based on completion speed and damage taken, so high-achievers can run it back again and again to try and shoot for top marks.
Path of Fury gets still more replayability points by way of its endless mode, in which you fight wave after wave of enemies set in stages corresponding to each act of the campaign.
Overall, this game is a simple-to-pick-up-yet-hard-to-master power fantasy that immerses you in its coherent and bold aesthetic identity.
Path of Fury is the very definition of avant garde (unsurprising considering its director) without taking itself too seriously.
And it’s a great workout!
Play it like you mean it for a couple of hours and you might have to wait ‘til tomorrow to play again!
And while I don’t think exercise is the main draw, the fact that the campaign and the endless mode both score your gameplay should make any gamer with a hint of competitiveness or completionism in their DNA want to come back to do better.
That, in turn, means more exercise.
Ladies, enbies, and gentlemen, we really get to live in a time where we can get fit by climbing the leaderboard.
But most importantly: Path of Fury is very fun.
It’s not perfect, mind you.
The automatic on-rails movement can sometimes put your hitbox close enough to your enemy’s that the game registers a strike.
If that turns out to be a wrong strike, your enemy will get to counter-attack.
Additionally, the game could use a couple of quality-of-life settings like a re-center option, or the now relatively standard auto-pause on press of the home button.
And while it might be that consumer tech just isn’t there yet for a title this phrenetic, I would pay double to play this game with hand-tracking!
As it stands, if you don’t hold down the trigger you’ll strike with an open hand.
But that feels off since you don’t actually have an open hand.
You’re grasping controllers. Your hands are closed.
I want to karate chop thugs!
I want to fight with tiger-fists!
I want to palm someone in the nose with my actual palm and have them slow-motion fly into a desk while I kiai like Bruce Lee!
Is that so much to ask?
I really don’t know.
But without Path of Fury I wouldn’t have the baseline to peer up and hope from.
You know, I’m shocked nearly every month by just how many innovations there are in this space; piecemeal, sure, but constant.
I really believe that the jump from console to VR is at least as game-changing (pun intended) for the artform as the jump was from 2D to 3D graphics.
And it’ll only cost you USD $9.99 to see just how Path of Fury innovates.
With great interest in where the series will go, we’re giving Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower a 9/10, as well as a welcome spot in our shortlist of games to rope in VR newcomers.
Hyper-Objective Omniscient Evaluation Yardstick
Scores are out of 10, where 10 is a masterpiece, 1 is unplayable, and 5 is just average.
Gameplay has a heavier weighting toward the overall score.
Gameplay – 8
Graphics – 8
Immersion – 9
Replayability – 9
Performance – 10
Sound – 10
Image / video credit: Auganix
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About the author
Kierkegaard once said that the artist is like one stuck inside Phalaris' brass bull, which burned up its victims and—due to the formation of its apertures—made beautiful music from their anguish.
The critic, he said, is just like the artist except he doesn't have the anguish in his heart nor the music on his lips.
A lifelong gamer based out of Vancouver, Pelé disagrees with Kierkegaard.